


all the gravediggers are gone

by crickets



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-08
Updated: 2008-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:00:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>claire and sawyer become each other's only strength after the separation of groups.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the gravediggers are gone

**Author's Note:**

> Words, 2350. [Original Post](http://crickets.livejournal.com/111538.html).

_When we die? Who will bury us?_

Claire sinks her toes deeper into the sand and watches Aaron in the tree, filling the pack at his side with fruit. He scales the branches with precision, moves like the animal that she knows he is. He's seven now. It's her best estimate. She never really kept track of the days after those first few weeks. It never really mattered to her. You're born. You die. The cycle continues whether or not you're paying attention, and she likes to think that it's better not to know just how many days they've spent under that same sun.

She watches as it slips below the horizon, and from the corner of her eye, she can see Sawyer emerging from the trees, a fresh kill in hand. The sight of him causes the whirring in her stomach to slow and steady, a familiar calm coming over her – one she never notices until she sees his face again.

+

If she's honest, she can't really remember the reasons they follow Locke that first night. Charlie was dead, and with his last breath he'd sent a warning. Beyond that, the details fade and disappear. Just as his face becomes a murky memory, so do the events following his death. There was a time when she felt guilt about that, but eventually that fades too.

She remembers falling down. Aaron's in her arms, still a baby then, and her legs won't take them another step. And Sawyer's there, catching her in his arms, carrying her the rest of the way to the barracks.

"Almost there, Mamacita," he says, as he moves toward the lights. There's fear in his voice, and he won't look her in the eyes. She thinks of Jack. She thinks of Kate and Desmond, and she thinks of rescue boats. _It's what they've been waiting for._ She wants to tell him to turn back, knows by the sound of his voice that if she did, he'd listen. But instead she nods and says _thank you_, and _hurry_ – a mistake she can't undo.

The group splinters off, retreating into buildings that look like ordinary houses, too weary to notice, too weary to care, the something sinister lurking in the air. Claire can't remember the last time she spent a night indoors, and with Sawyer snoring on the couch, soft sheets, and thoughts of Jack and the others out of her mind, she sleeps more soundly than she has in her entire life.

+

Locke keeps them, drugs them that next night, their bellies filled with warm bread, meat, and lies. By the time they wake, there are chains on the doors.

"Fuck!" Sawyer shouts and kicks, but the doors don't budge. Claire makes food, says she can't let a stocked fridge go to waste, and eats alone, because Sawyer's too angry to get anything down. The next few days they work out a system to communicate with Hurley and the others – they flicker porch lights and Sawyer scribbles notes on paper.

The message reads: _Contact. They're going home. Locke was wrong._

What it doesn't say is, _Charlie was wrong_, even though she knows that's what it means.

+

Two nights later, Hurley gets out. Alex and Karl are with him when he calls through the door.

"We'll be back for you," he promises. "We won't leave without you!."

"Hurley, we have to go," Alex says, her voice low and panicked. "Now! Move!" They shuffle off, disappearing between the buildings and forever from their lives.

Claire collapses by the door, the tears she couldn't shed for Charlie finally coming in waves and waves. Sawyer holds her until morning, there on the floor. "They're comin' back," he says, steadies her shaking hands. "They're comin' back," he says again, but this time it's not for her.

+

Weeks later, when Locke and Ben remove the chains, it is Claire who steadies _his_ hands. She holds Aaron on her hip with one hand and laces her fingers through his with the other as they step into the sunlight.

"You can stay here," Ben says.

"You'll be safe," Locke chimes from behind him.

"Or you can go," Ben finishes. "We won't stop you."

"Stop us?" Sawyer laughs. "What's to stop me from murdering you with my bare hands, _Jones_?"

"You wouldn't," Ben says.

"The _hell_ I wouldn't!" He moves toward Ben, but Claire reaches out and pulls him back.

"No," she whispers. The boat is gone. She knows, even then, they won't be back. But she also knows that they're still human. They have to hold on to that. "Don't."

+

They stay.

Sawyer's jaw clenches and he doesn't sleep at night. It was her choice, and he doesn't understand, but he won't leave them, not now.

"You sure about this, C?" he asks her every day after.

"I'm sure," she says, and sometimes she thinks she's crazy too. But they keep to themselves, they eat alone, and in the months that follow, they come to think of this place as home.

One night, Claire finds him in the kitchen, standing there in the moonlight, just staring at his hands, entranced and looking more like a little boy than she's ever seen him. "Sawyer?" she comes to him, places a hand on his neck, tries to get him to look at her. "Sawyer, look at me. What's wrong?"

He doesn't look at her. He doesn't move. She presses her hands into his open palms, leading them to her side. "Please," she whispers, stands on her tiptoes, and presses her lips to his. "Please, god dammit!" she begs when he doesn't respond, and kisses him again.

This time he seizes her waist, opens his mouth to her, tasting her for the first time. She lets out a shocked little moan when he does and leans into the kiss. Maybe this wasn't what she intended. She only wanted to get his attention, but this is something else. She feels a swelling in her stomach, a need she had ignored until this moment. But she pushes that thought back and manages to push him back as well, despite her body's protests.

"We can't stay here anymore, Mamacita," he says when they part, breathless. She nods solemnly. She knows. Things have been strained between Locke and Ben. The others have been speaking in hushed whispers for weeks, and she keeps hearing the name Jacob, over and over again, and something about the security gates breaking down. They're no safer here than anywhere else on the island, and she hasn't been able to shake the feeling that something bad is going to happen, and soon.

"I know," she says. "It's time to go."

+

Back at the beach, it's just the three of them now. They gather and inventory supplies, they hunt and fish, they build and eat and sleep. Claire tends to Sun's garden. Sawyer cooks over the fire. When they're not doing that, they're taking shelter from the storms. And when they're not doing that, they're doing the rest all over again. Aaron's walking now, and sometimes they swim, even when it's not to wash the day away, they play and laugh, and Sawyer sings Aaron to sleep. On more than one occasion, Claire gets caught in his lullaby, and dozes off to the sound of his voice.

Occasionally when they wake, there's a fresh kill outside their door. "Danielle," Claire will say, and she's sure of it.

And every now and then, it's a fresh stock of Dharma supplies.

"Locke?" Sawyer suggests one morning. The sun is still low in the sky, and Aaron is sleeping soundly in his crib.

Claire laughs. "Or Jacob," she says in a mocking tone. Sawyer kisses her then and she lets him, lets him undress her and take her inside their flimsy, bamboo walls, his slick mouth trailing down her neck and over her shoulder. He smells like campfire smoke, and Claire can't help but wonder whether this would have ever happened in any other circumstances. Maybe its true what they say about proximity, and maybe that's the only reason she let Charlie get so close in the first place. But when Sawyer's rough hands grip her thighs, and she opens her legs for him, she somehow feels like maybe this is about more than that.

She can feel him hard against her thigh, his mouth over her nipple, and she reaches down, fumbling with his trousers, but can't seem to make her fingers function well enough to get them open. _Damn, why the hell did they wait so long?_

"Wait," he says, leans up, and takes over for her, "let me."

She's seen him naked before, in the water, scrubbing himself clean, or just when changing, modesty already a thing of the past. She even saw him masturbating one morning, though he doesn't know that. But now when she sees him exposed like this, hovering over her, his swollen cock ready, she feels suddenly shy.

"You okay?" he whispers, low and gruff, but caring too.

The words are enough to break her of her momentary shyness, and she can't wait much longer. She pulls him into a kiss, traces her tongue across his salty jaw, then nods in answer. He's inside her then. She gasps. He grunts. They move together for several moments, open mouths and skin on skin, her walls squeezing him tight, his hands at her side, and then it's over much too quickly and he's coming inside her with one short thrust.

Sawyer rolls off of her and by her side. "I swear, it won't always be like that," he says after a moment, breathless.

Claire laughs, _really laughs_.

And after a while, he's laughing too.

+

One night he whispers in her ear, tells her of how he once killed a man, almost with his bare hands, right here on this island. He tells her about a blue-eyed baby girl named Clementine, tells her he thinks Kate might have been pregnant.

She kisses him, slips her fingers through his hair and slides on top of him.

"You're a good man, Sawyer," she says, and in that moment, she _is_ his absolution.

+

When the meat and supplies stop showing up, Sawyer decides it's time to trek back to the barracks. These anonymous gifts have been, for so long, their only connection to the other human inhabitants on the island. They sent a clear, concise, message each time they arrived in the black of night.

_We are still here. We are alive._

"Somethin’ ain't right," he says. "It's been two months." And the look in his eyes is enough to convince her.

"Okay, but we go together," she insists.

Something is indeed _wrong_.

When they arrive at the barracks, there is very little that _isn't_ wrong. The buildings have been all but destroyed, and there is no sign of life anywhere. Roofs, blown, or ripped off, trash, furniture, and supplies scattered in the yards – like something blew through and picked everything up and dropped it back to Earth in whichever way it fell.

"What should we do?" Claire asks, as if there is something to be done.

"We pack up what supplies we can carry, and head straight back to the beach," Sawyer says. "If there's anything of value, we come back for it tomorrow. But we damn sure ain't spendin' a single night here. Not ever."

+

When Claire gets pregnant, she doesn't tell Sawyer.

She knows because it's just like before, with Aaron, tender breasts and erratic nausea. And she also knows what it means.

She leaves them both in the night, kisses Aaron, now three, on the forehead, and leaves a note, (_I will be back. Don't worry._) and heads off in search of the medical hatch. She doesn't know what she plans to do once she gets there, and it doesn't matter. It's simply the most sterile place she can think of.

She emerges from the jungle the next day, her hands bloody and her face pale. Sawyer is angry when he cleans her up. "Don't go off like that again," he says sounding like he just might have to kill her if she does, stripping her of her bloody shirt. But behind it there's fear. "Can't be leavin' me here alone with that rugrat of yours." And behind it, there's love.

Claire never tells him why she left or where she went, how she got so bloody, or even where it hurts.

She won't get pregnant again after that night.

+

She remembers something Aaron asked her recently.

"When we die? Who will bury us?" he asks, peering over one of the many books Sawyer's given him.

"What?" It kind of unnerves Claire how much he likes to read. But Sawyer had been reading to him since he was a baby, taught him to sound out the letters, and as soon as he could spell his own name and simple words like "mom" and "boar", Sawyer started giving him books. Now, he had stacks and stacks of them. Some of the books had fallen from the sky, just like they themselves had. And some of the books had come from the barracks, carried one by one, until it seemed that each time they went back for supplies, a few new books would make it into the pile.

"Nothing," he says, settling his eyes back on the page.

"God, I think," she tells him. Because it's probably more true than anything she could come up with, but by then, he's already too deep into the story in front of him to hear her answer. _I hope_, she thinks. _God, I hope._

+

Tonight, Sawyer cooks rabbit over an open flame, and Claire's just glad it isn't fish. Aaron falls asleep by the fire after dinner, a book tucked in his hand, and Sawyer carries him inside.

"Do you think we'll ever go home again?" Claire asks, curled next to Sawyer, his warmth enveloping her.

He kisses her jaw, whispers into her ear. "We _are_ home, Mamacita," he says. "We are home."


End file.
